This week, we received the proofread and professionally edited files (a “CLEAN” file and an “EDIT” file) of The Dictionary of Curious Words: Volume One: Into the Garden. This work was done by the gentleman found on Fiverr.come found below. (Classic black and white photo and glasses always make someone look smarter!)
If you are looking for editing and proofreading or even author coaching, Maxwell is fantastic! Here is his link on Fiverr.com
And here is what he had to say after doing all of this work:
Well, you’ve certainly left me wanting more. Hopefully, it won’t take you too long to “peck” out Book II! As a father of two young children, this is exactly the kind of bedtime story I would love to share a few years down the line. So many powerful lessons packed into one little garden. Thank you so much for inviting me in. I’ll be here to continue pruning until you’re completely happy with the manuscript~ Warmest regards, Maxwell
One of the things about Fiverr.com is that you can leave comments about the person you have received a service from, and they can also leave a comment about you as a buyer of their services. Here is what he had to say about me:
Not just a writer. A true storyteller... Thanks so much for a crazy-good read!
In this week’s newsletter, we are picking up where we left off last week as we discover Amelia has a special ability that stems from the way her fascinating mind can connect things together like pieces of a puzzle. Theses chapter also come from Book II Over the Chimney which sets up the resolution of the series in the last volume Through the Gate where Amelia understands The Key the Living Library has been searching for and then figures out how to make everything come together to defeat The Absence Of Love and help Nate and Gracie keep the promises they have made to each other from the vey beginning of the series. (Spoiler Alert: Gracie will indeed dance on the grandest stage in Paris!)
It was late October, early November. The garden plants have put forth their last and best efforts. They all sense winter is coming and that their lives will end. The daytime grows shorter, and the nighttime grows chillier.
They are doing their best to carry on into the future. The okra, the tomatoes, and the eggplants have put out blossoms and then their last fruits. None will have time to mature. The tomatoes, if they are fortunate, may get a slight blush, but most will remain hard and green. None will mature. The first frost will see to that. But they will try. They may succeed. Who knows? It is not for me to say.
So I draw. Then I write about what I draw, and I feel the same sense of urgency my garden plants are expressing in their final fruits of the season. The fall tomato vines have become bent and beaten down by the heavy winds and rains that have come at the end of hurricane season. Their growth has become straggly, searching for more sunlight in the shorter days. They remind me of the lines on a face, the lines on a heart, the lines on a map.
When I looked up from my sketchbook, I saw Amelia doing something I had never seen her do before, and knew I must add her to the drawing. She was facing into the warm wind blowing strongly from the south. It was the last of a late hurricane turned tropical storm that had crossed the Gulf of Mexico and followed the Appalachian mountains to get to the mid-Atlantic states.
Her mouth was open, but her eyes were closed. She was smiling sublimely. I imagined she was dreaming of tropical places with brilliant colors we can only imagine here.
When she had finished, I asked her, “You were dreaming of faraway places, weren’t you, Amelia? Wishing you could see beautiful sights? Tasting colors I can only imagine?”
“No, not at all. I’m sorry, but you are mistaken.”
“I thought you were being poetic. You do get that way sometimes.”
“I was being practical,” she said. “I am making a map. A map of the world.”
That was when I knew she was preparing to make a journey beyond the safety of our garden, and I wondered if this was the sign for her time to leave that Emily had mentioned.
I asked no more questions, and instead, I let her go back to her mapmaking. How could she make a map without any paper or tools? I would find out more details later, perhaps from Emily, who knows her best. But Emily didn’t know, and so if I were to ever understand, I would have to find out from Amelia.
When the right moment came, I asked her as directly as she would have asked me, “Tell me about your mapmaking, Amelia.”
But then, rather than listening to what she had to say, I showed her a map from my favorite geography book. I thought it would spark her curiosity as it had done mine so many years ago, and perhaps I secretly hoped it might convince her to stay in our little garden home.
”Maybe you can study this one instead of making your own,” I suggested.
“I cannot use that map.”
”Well, I know it has words on it, but I could tell you what those words are or even help you learn to read them. Some of them have pictures of real things and where they are found. Perhaps we can find an alligator in Florida and flamingos too. They are like tall pink chickens.”
She shook her head. She was not amused at my description of flamingos or impressed by my book.
“You can even have this book if you’d like.” I took out a pencil. “Look, we can even write your name in it.”
She shook her head again, only this time there was empathy in her eyes for me. She knew my heart wanted so much for her to avoid the dangers beyond our garden walls. Not only that, but she knew I was hoping this book of maps with pictures of faraway places might convince her to stay. We both knew that it wouldn’t.
I closed the book and put away the pencil.
“I am sorry, Amelia. I should not have treated you as a little child, as not knowing anything on your own. I should have been listening before I started telling.”
I sat on the ground beside her and said simply, “Tell me about your map of the world, Amelia.”
And so she did.
“I taste the air. I study the wind. I find out how fast it is blowing, the direction from which it is blowing. Likewise, I use how strong the taste is to know the distance it has traveled. I remember each one. Whenever they come to me mixed, then I know the path they have taken to get here to this backyard garden, and I chart them all in my mind. You cannot draw tastes. You cannot make a book of tastes. And I cannot carry your big geography book with all of its pretty maps.”
She stopped for a moment and looked away. She was checking to see if the new gust of wind blowing our way had any information to add to her map of the world.
“I am making a map the only way I know how.”
”Amelia, I think that is what we are all doing in our own way—making a map the only way we know how. We are all trying to figure out how life works.”
She pointed with her beak to the northwest as if she had not heard me.
”That way is the river, the big river that we only see a tiny piece of on the other side of our street.”
”That is the Elizabeth River,” I said. Not to give her a name to add to her map. She didn’t need a name for it. I only wanted her to know I believed she could do exactly what she said she could do.
”Further beyond that is another river. It is close to our first home—where we flew free for hours every day. That was before the flock started to be taken away one and two at a time. And we did not understand why.”
”That is the Nansemond River,” I said. “And I remember walking across that big yard surrounded by a flock of chickens flying past me. You always flew the highest, leading the way. It was a most amazing moment for me. It was like being surrounded by a sea of feathers, as if I was moving forward and flying with you.”
She pointed with her beak to the south and continued her explanation.
“This wind today, it came from far away. I have tasted it before, but not so strongly. Now I have more details to add to my map. It tastes of fish and things like fish, but smaller and without scales and bones.”
“That is the Gulf of Mexico, and those were shrimp and crawdads.”
”I think I might like to try catching some crawdads,” she said. “That is a funny name. Crawdads.”
“You would make a fine crawdad catcher, Amelia. Without a doubt.”
It seemed as if our conversation might be over. We smiled at each other as we thought of what it would be like for a chicken to catch crawdads. If any chicken could do it, it would be Amelia. I did not tell her how their claws can pinch.
But there was more on her mind.
”There is one thing that still puzzles me though,” she said. “I can taste the air from places far away that I cannot see, but I cannot taste the air from the Moon that I can see. It is close. I can see it. It changes its shape. But I cannot add it to a place on my map. I have never been able to find even the littlest of breezes that brings any tastes from the Moon.”
”What do you think that means, Amelia?”
”I think it means I will need to go there, since I cannot add it to my map. It may be the only place where I can go and be truly lost. I cannot be lost in a place on my map of the world. When I fly to the moon, then I will know if I can be lost and not afraid.”
“Knowing that is critical to you, isn’t it, Amelia? You need to know if you can be lost and not afraid, but to accomplish that, you must first become lost.”
She nodded.
“Most people use maps to keep themselves from becoming lost, but it sounds like you are making a map of the world to make yourself become lost.”
She nodded again, and I waited to see if she would tell me more.
“My map of the world was not for that purpose at first. It did not start out that way. It started as a map for finding.
“I became afraid when they began to break up our first flock. I was afraid they would separate me from Emily. I had promised her, ‘If we are ever separated, then I will find some way to get to you. No matter what. I will get to you.’ That was when I discovered how to make a map of the world this way. It was so I could find Emily if we were separated.
“She was always the littlest and did not fit in with the others of her kind, just like I did not fit in with the others like me. But we weren’t separated after all.”
“When they asked me to take you, Amelia, and give you a new home, I asked them for another to come with you, someone for companionship. Gracie and Bessie already had each other. Blanche and Pearl already had each other. You would be the only one without a best friend. They chose Emily because she seemed to spend the most time with you, even though she was never able to fly as high as you.”
“I never knew all of that,” she said.
“Sometimes there are even bigger maps than the ones we make for ourselves, Amelia. When it comes to your map, it sounds as if you need to lose yourself before you can find yourself. Maybe everyone does at some time.”
She had nothing else to say just then, and so she gazed off into the autumn sunset as its colors began to tint everything in our garden. She looked so beautiful, my Amelia.
Our garden home seemed so perfect for her, and I wanted to tell her, “This is where you belong.” But I knew if that was true, she would need to discover it for herself. She would also have to discover for herself whether her promise to Emily still held true. “If we are ever separated, I will find some way to get to you. No matter what, I will get to you.”
Amelia gazed off into the sunset as its colors began to tint her feathers and everything in our garden with golden light. This place seemed so perfect for her.
Would she still be “My Amelia” if she went away and never returned? Yes, nothing could change my heart.
I wanted to tell her, “This is where you belong. This is where you can be safe and warm and where you can feel like you’re home.”
But I knew if that was true beyond the hopes in my heart, she would need to discover it for herself.
Instead, I said, “I wish I could fly with you, Amelia. But I can’t.”
She looked at me quizzically, unsure if I was being silly or serious.
“You are needed here,” she said with her most practical tone. “Who will watch over Emily? She likes it here. This home is good for her, and she loves the garden flowers.
“She may even learn to trust herself here and become what she was meant to become without depending on me.”
“Emily doesn’t trust herself?”
“Not the way she should. She only trusts others, not herself. And I am the opposite. I only trust myself.”
She stopped, realizing that she may have shared too much of her heart with me.
“But we were talking about flying. You may not be able to fly, but you and I are still very much alike.”
I knew she was trying to change the subject, but that didn’t bother me. I just wanted to hear her voice and add a few more memories to the ones I was holding so tightly, never wanting to forget.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We are both bound by the beauty of the light upon this earth,” she said, looking again at the sunset colors washing over everything.
“And we both still have so much left to do while we wait for the sweetness of the leaving.”
“There is the poetic side of you at last, Amelia,” I said and smiled.
So, we went back to our things still left to do. Amelia returned to her mapmaking, and I returned to my sketching.
As I filled in the last drawing details, I thought over what Amelia had said about trust. I wondered if she had made these plans to fly off into the dangerous unknown more for Emily’s sake than for her own. Maybe this was to somehow help Emily learn to trust herself. It was the only way I could reconcile Amelia’s desire to fly to the moon with her promise to Emily that if they were ever separated, she would find some way to get to her, no matter what.
Whatever the reasons, both my littlest Emily and my dearest Amelia had engraved indelible marks on the map of my heart.
Coming soon, Amelia will receive a sign that it is time for her to leave The Garden and find out if she can be lost and not afraid. Her journey will help Emily learn to trust herself and not just others. This will also help Amelia to learn to trust others and not just herself, the climax of Over the Chimney.
Until Next Time
Thank you for reading!
John, Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Pearl, Emily, and Amelia
Congratulations!
I loved the illustration in this newsletter.